From texasoakwilt.org... - Always paint fresh wounds on oaks, including pruning cuts and stumps, with wound dressing or latex paint immediately after pruning or live tree removal at all times of the year. - Clean all pruning tools with 10% bleach solution or Lysol⢠between sites and/or trees. - If possible, avoid pruning or wounding of oaks during the spring (currently defined as February 1 through June 30). Reasons to prune in the spring include: a) To accommodate public safety concerns such as hazardous limbs, traffic visibility or emergency utility line clearance. b) To repair damaged limbs (from storms or other anomalies) c) To remove limbs rubbing on a building or rubbing on other branches, and to raise low limbs over a street. d) On sites where construction schedules take precedence; in this case, pruning any live tissue should only be done to accommodate required clearance. e) Dead branch removal where live tissue is not exposed. - Pruning for other reasons (general tree health, non-safety related clearance or thinning, etc.) should be conducted before February 1 or after June 30. - Debris from diseased red oaks should be immediately chipped, burned or buried.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts! Dan: What is a flicker? And can I take it that you meant I should cut the lower branch off, which is the most damaged? If it is a pathogen of some sort, is there anything you think I could do to help the tree? Make sure it has a fighting chance. We usually spread compost on our yard spring and fall. My neighbor has a red oak 10' on the other side of the fence, and his tree never greens up each summer; the leaves stay the light spring green color. I always thought our spreading compost helped our trees to be strong, with strong, dark green leaves. But maybe this was not a good idea? If I introduced a pathogen this way? JQPublic, here are requested photos: Here is the tree in its entirety. As you can see, from the left we have an arbor vitex (chaste tree/Texas Lavender), small red oak, and then the tallest tree, with the airplane path touching it on the left, is the Red Oak with the bark loss. In front is a Texas Red bud. I realize my earlier pictures had some spent vitex blooms in the pic. We have several trees in there together, and its hard to get a clean pic. Here is the tree down to the bole, from the same direction, looking toward the house. I don't know how to draw a circle on a picture, so let me say that in this pic, you can see the worst damage, on the first branch from the ground, on the right. That is the branch almost completely girdled. This branch is about 15' feet from the ground. Because we have a sloped yard, here is pic of the tree down to the bole, from the house, looking toward the green belt we back up to. Kids are messy, so please excuse me that I didn't pick up before taking pic. I was trying to hurry during nap time. As I mentioned, I don't know how to draw a circle on a pic, and couldn't figure it out just now, so here is a pic that shows both places of damage so you can get an idea of how far apart they are, and how the main trunk is reacting. The second place of damage is much smaller and way higher than the first. Again this picture is looking from the house, toward the green belt. The lowest/first set of branches off the main trunk has the worst damage, and the third set of branches up the trunk is the second lesser damaged area. This second damaged area seems to be healing well, but I would like to know what caused the problem, so we can stop it. In full disclosure I'll mention that we noticed the initial problem on the lowest branches summer 2008. Summer 2009 we noticed the problem higher up on the third set of branches. We probably DO need to call out an arborist, but are being cheap and hoping it would be an easily diagnosed problem by the GW experts! Thank you everyone for your help and advice! I really appreciate it. Heather

If you have room for all of them, plant em all and enjoy the faster growing ones as they get big fast and the slower growing ones will in time be worth the wait. I have a BURR oak that grows faster than my 2 Q. Alba's have, BUT, it was a special kind that came from a HUGE acorn that a fellow Garden web person gave me. I have several Red oak family oaks that have grown sorta fast BUT I also have some white oak family oaks that grow about as fast as the red oak family oaks. I think the site they are growing on also matters a good bit also. My 2 Q. Albas are pretty slow growing though, I must say, BUT, everybody has different planting sites. Sometimes with certain trees I do wonder, "is it the area the tree is in, or genetics?" I have 2 Q. Robur's I got at the same time from the same person, and 1 of them has grown like a freakin Jacks Beanstock and 1 has just done "average". Now, the "Beanstocks" place used to have some horse poop near it, BUT, the OTHER Q. Robur is really close to a, area where another but OLDER source of horse poop used to be, I have a shrub there that has been growing like wild in that space from that same soil where we used to have a horse barn for about 25 years, in other words that other Q. Robur that hasn't taken off like the "Beanstock" one has is very close to the area where that OLDER pile of poop was many years ago, and actually, once that Q. Roburs roots get to wandering around I thi nk that IT will also tap into that very rich soil. My "Beanstock Q. Robur was basically planted about 5 feet from where the horse poop pile had been about 10 years before I planted it, so, it surely had a nice amount of rich soil to tap into from the get go, PLUS, it was close to the house and I had surely watered it when it hadn't rained very often. That "Beanstock" Q, Robur has also put out a few acorns as of the last couple of years and it is pretty young, maybe 7-8 years old, that is a guess, I do have a bunch of pics with dates on them, BUT, for now, I'll just guess.

If oak wilt is not currently present in your area and the tree you'll be planting is relatively isolated from other oaks, then I'd go with an oak, even something in the red oak group if that's what your heart desires. However, Ken is correct about red oaks being more susceptible to wilt than the white oaks. EAB is spread by an insect, while oak wilt is a fungus that is often spread from one tree to another via root grafts. However, even soil type and terrain can impact spread of wilt, with light soils and flat or gently rolling terrain being more condusive to underground spread of wilt via root grafts. I live in an area with sandy soil, and oak wilt has diminished the native Q. ellipsoidalis population, which is the most common oak in my neck of the woods. I've got several large Northern Pin Oaks that have died from wilt over the years and it is all very sad. It wouldn't make sense for me to plant a red oak, but it MAY be perfectly OK for you to do so.